In the Distance, Sleigh Bells Echo
by missymoobelle
Summary: Maka couldn't help but look outside and listen for train tracks rattling and a conductor heartily inviting her on board, much like that Christmas Eve many years before. However, she settled for sipping her eggnog politely and watching a curious streak of light flit about the night sky. AU, Maka-ccentric, fluffy one-shot.


**Hullo loyal viewers! Chapter three of my other fic is going a little slower than planned, so here's a little Christmas present for you! Why? Because Polar Express is a FUCKING AMAZING MOVIE and I can write for Maka WAAAAY better than for Soul. Guess I relate to her more :3**

**So this was inspired by the movie Polar Express, none of this shit is mine, there's a reason it's called "Fan"Fiction, blah blah blah.**

**Enjoy~!**

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She batted the holly hanging about the ceiling uninterestedly, the sugar induced drunkenness of eggnog wearing off slowly, and the swaying of the red berries becoming less hypnotic. Maka sighed, and fingered her dark blue turtleneck, at a loss for what to do with her excess time at her much more social savvy friend Liz's Christmas party.

Liz's boyfriend was loaded, as in son to the city's mayor "I'm so filthy rich that my allowance sees fit to provide me with a house, wife, and child" loaded, so the party they hosted was nothing less than pure extravagance. The decorations were tasteful, the premises glowing with a cinnamon scented warmth, the guests equally gussied up to compliment their festive surroundings. Maka couldn't help but enjoy herself though; after all, these people were relatively friendly, and the spread was just short of gourmet, so how couldn't she have a good time?

A good time, she noticed, that was relatively short lived. Sure, they were nice and all, but they all seemed to know each other and pass on knowing glances, murmured inside jokes, synchronized smiles. She felt very much the role of the awkward intruder of a private family reunion, and although they didn't outright tell her to buzz off, she got the idea the first couple times she was the only one not laughing when someone brought up hilarious remembrances of last year's get together.

After swirling the remains of her eggnog in her (what she thought was really just overkill this time) slim wine glass, she set it down and gingerly sat up, walking idly to the front door, passing the warm conversations and shared guffaws across the soft carpeted floor.

Turning the silver door handle as quietly as possible, Maka slipped onto the front porch, her socks complaining against the frosted cherry floorboards, melting it into water with each step. She paid her numb toes no mind, and instead chose to stand in front of the grand entrance double doors to Liz's boyfriend's (Kidd, as Liz nicknamed him) mansion, and look up into the night sky.

A grand chapel of midnight, its great dome arching across the heavens in an eternal blue of infinite depth, flickering stars becoming innumerable candles that lit Maka's way through the porch. Padded feet mutely stepped down three concrete stairs and onto the yard, and the faint crunch of fresh snow resonated in the silent and otherwise undisturbed night. Gazing at the wide expanse of heaven above, Maka's eyes trailed from the trickling starlight that cascaded from everywhere at once in a mighty river of darkness and light, to the absent moon, no longer witness to such an unearthly, fragile beauty such as tonight's held, with her being the one apparition to dare to defile and adore this fleeting moment.

She stopped shuffling through the snow halfway though the lawn, and looked upon the great sky's dome again, watching her breath crawl from her lips and into the cold air, curling and twisting about the stars, rising in hopes of becoming part of the nebulas themselves before they completely evaporated into oblivion. Maka felt a sudden wave of nostalgia hit her like a rolling wave, sweeping her mind back to a past Christmas night, one that equaled tonight's in its entirety.

Her pigtails were let loose that night as well, striped flannels sweeping the ivory snow with each tentative step out of her small suburban house, the snowman she and her Papa had built the previous morning waving at her while she trekked onward.

The faint sound of bells rung in the heavy night, light and melodic; unlike any other now comparatively dull bell tried to sound. It was like something out of a dream, she thought to herself. She awoke from her slumber that Eve to the sound of distant chiming, a humming song of light and irregular tinkling outside.

Suddenly, a garbage bin fell down across the street, while her house's windows began to shake in their very panes. Roof shingles rattled while chimneys billowed smoke at a steady flow; the jingles soon were replaced by a sharp whistle, drawn out and clear as day. The stale night air was now moving, vibrating, brought to _life_.

And as Maka looked around frantically, searching for the source of the starling and quickly approaching noise, she made out railroad tracks, black and prominent in the sparkling white of the ground, in the middle of the street.

_Railroad tracks weren't there in the middle of the street._

Just as Maka spun her head towards the loud whistling and clamorous howling coming towards her house, a magnificent, onyx steam engine train roared past, wheels whirring, golden windows passing, and tiny silhouettes of children looking right back at her upon the tracks that laid upon Grigori Avenue.

As the train gradually sears to a surprisingly gentle stop, a dapper, bespectacled conductor with a trimmed mustache and iridescent lantern called her aboard the intimidating yet inviting gargantuan train.

_"AAAALL AAABOARD~!"_

And this man would be…?

_"Why, I am your conductor and escort for the night, ma'am! Are you ready to go?"_

Go? Go to where? At this time of night? Mama never likes Maka's who stay up past their bedtime.

_"You are Maka Albarn, aren't you?" _He checks his roster, and she gives a sure nod.

_"Then you are scheduled for the journey of your life! Little miss, this is the Polar Express!"_

She awed at the gleaming beast purring about the tracks. Could she, the girl who held perhaps a little too much faith in her beloved nonfiction novels, really be invited on such an abstract and translucent dream such as this? No no, not a dream, but a duty?

_"Ma'am, although you have all the time in the world right now, my passengers don't. As far as your records go, you're fine school-wise. However, your letter to Santa and cookies with milk have not been accounted for this Christmas; just what do you think you're getting away with?"_

But Santa isn't real. Papa just told me he's a commercial tool the media uses to increase holiday season product sales and consumer rates. And Mama…Mama says she's too tired to celebrate this year.

Maybe it's because Papa isn't sure that he wants **one** Mama…

_"Well madam, in order to solve that case, you either get on, or you don't. Remember: time. Is. Ticking- OOP! You see? Now we're late for being early!"_

Yeesh mister, you don't have to look at your funny watch so mad. I'll go, I'm coming! I'm- EEP! Is that hot chocolate I smell?!

It was all so surreal. The chefs shuffling on the tabletops, the frozen lake caught between staggering mountains, dancing elves who bungee jump off of high-up blimps, the northern lights singing along with her fluttering heart, a homeless man who can ski on rooftops, a spare bell teaching her to believe. Not in her Papa staying with a single woman, not in Mama leaving and taking her along to travel the world _together_, not in the books and their printed honesty she took great comfort in.

It was belief in herself, in Christmas _itself_, and that the strange man who lives on the underside of the train makes the best cup of joe, no matter which foot he used.

Blinking out of her zoning, she notices white blurred specs lying daintily on her just-as-pale blonde lashes; it began snowing. Breathing in the cool air of a present Christmas night washes the distant, but never fading memories away. This night, they seemed even sharper; in high definition to be exact. It may be because it is Christmas, and the general spirit of the holiday is bringing out crisper memories of that magical evening, but Maka doesn't care to elaborate.

She believes, and that's all that matters.

Maka opens the double doors to the party and steps in genuinely refreshed, her blue turtleneck adorned with stray snowflakes and a curious necklace, a humbly beautiful silver bell attached to a matching thin chain adorning her blouse, hanging about her abdomen, swaying back and forth. Liz runs up to Maka and worriedly mothers her about her sudden disappearance, apologizing for not finding her sooner; she was caught up with some chit-chatty relatives.

"Oh Maka! _Shit_, 'm sorry! Man, Patti's gonna have my ass if I tell her I invited you to just freeze yourself on the front porch!"

"O-oh, no Liz, I was actually enjoying myself out there. It just got a little stuffy in here, you know?"

"I guess so…Hey! That's such a cute necklace!" She fingers the bell admiringly. "Where did you get it?"

"Ah.." Maka smiled. "A really good friend of mine gave it to me. It was his."

"Well, at least he had good taste in jewelry!" She shook the bell for effect, but frowned when silence was all that followed.

"Damn! Thought it was a real bell too. Sorry bout that Maka! It would've been cool if it was though, right?" Liz happily ended and then turned to attend to her surplus of guests, while Maka shook the bell again, and with a slight crinkle to her eye, she listened to the nostalgic song of Santa's sleigh, train whistles and her still thriving dreams.

She made her way to the plate of cookies she had set up the night before hidden behind the spare logs by the fireplace, sneaking it in when Liz disappeared for a few moments while they were party decorating the previous day, and was not surprised in the least when she found the plate she tucked away was distinctly empty of any confectionary sweets, and her heart roaring like the spirited engine of the always punctual and forever running Polar Express.

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**Have a merry Christmas everybody, hope you liked your fluffy present! R&R if you want to give me mine! :3**


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